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Poll: Would you have bought a front-wheel drive MS?

RWD vs FWD and Model S


  • Total voters
    93
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Rear wheel drive (RWD) is essential to me. I've owned a total of 2 front-wheel drive (FWD) cars in my life and did not care for how they drove at all. If a car is not available in RWD, I'll look for something else.

I suspect I'm a small minority, but let's see how many of you are like me.
 
No, but would have bought an all-wheel drive Model S - if available at the time - without a second of hesitation.
My current Porsche 964 has AWD and the Model S replaces an Audi A4 Quattro TDI company car.
 
I think the whole premise of the question is flawed. FWD exists because it's a cheaper way to make ICE cars. The Model S is not an ICE car, and crucially it's not even based on an ICE car, so at no point in the car's development will they even have considered such a weird idea as to have the same set of wheels doing both the steering and the propulsion.

You might as well run a poll asking "would you have bought the Model S if its body panels were made out of marshmallow?".
 
Except that the Leaf is FWD and it really isn't significantly based on an ICE car even many think it is. What FWD does is allow more storage in the back where people are used to it. It is better in snow. FWD tends to understeer which is considered safer for the majority of the driving public.

RWD is obviously better for handling. But a part of that is with an ICE, it allows for closer to 50/50 weight distribution. With an EV, you could easily have 50/50 weight distribution with a FWD car. RWD mostly helps for dry straight line traction during hard acceleration.

I suspect the majority of the driving public (in the US) prefer FWD (or have no preference). The vast majority of enthusiasts prefer RWD.
 
Except that the Leaf is FWD and it really isn't significantly based on an ICE car even many think it is. What FWD does is allow more storage in the back where people are used to it. It is better in snow. FWD tends to understeer which is considered safer for the majority of the driving public.

RWD is obviously better for handling. But a part of that is with an ICE, it allows for closer to 50/50 weight distribution. With an EV, you could easily have 50/50 weight distribution with a FWD car. RWD mostly helps for dry straight line traction during hard acceleration.

I suspect the majority of the driving public (in the US) prefer FWD (or have no preference). The vast majority of enthusiasts prefer RWD.

Isn't it based off the Versa? I believe the motor is up front in the Leaf so makes sense for it to be FWD. I suspect you are correct that most think they want FWD in snow states due to their experiences driving RWD ICEs with all season tires in the snow.

Maybe Tesla will become an AWD only company. Would only need to develop one platform that way and would be a major selling point.
 
@David_Cary I simply do not believe that the Leaf started from a blank sheet of paper, whatever Nissan's Press people will tell you. It is based at least indirectly on Nissan's B0 platform (shared with Renault I believe).

Your comments about ways in which FWD ICE cars are better are irrelevant because we are not talking about ICE cars!!

I don't believe a FWD Model S would have a meaningful amount more rear storage; the motor is tiny, and located in a space that could not easily be reclaimed for storage.
FWD ICE cars can be better in snow because when rear driven wheels lose traction and spin it is harder to keep in a straight line than if front driven wheels lose traction. But a modern electric car with a low inertia drivetrain and ultra-fast traction and stability control systems doesn't have wheels losing traction and spinning to start with.
I disagree that a modern FWD electric is any safer than a RWD electric car because of the inherent tendency to under or oversteer - again because a low-interia electric drivetrain and sophisticated stability control systems take away all these issues, unless you have either turned them off or are doing something really really stupid.
 
I drove a Fiat 500e for grins last month. The best Fiat I have ever driven and generally a lot of fun, but the torque on the front wheels was almost dangerous, nearly pulling the steering wheel out of my hands unless the wheels were straight. After that experience I will never consider a FWD electric car!
 
Didn't vote, since I'm not considering a Model S. But if Gen III was FWD I would still buy it.

However, I doubt Tesla will ever go FWD as the advantages of that is slim given the EV drivetrain and modern TC/ESC. In an ICE car, the main advantage of FWD is avoiding the long driveshaft (and rear/mid engine designs are hard to package with ICE while maintaining cargo space) and traction advantage in the snow (plus the understeer is safer than oversteer).

The truly ground up EVs have picked a RR layout (rear motor, rear wheel drive), for example the i3. The Leaf was only partially ground up because its chassis was still modified from a ICE car (not developed from scratch), likely to provide better parts commonality and help assembly line compatibility.